Community is so crucial to these metaverses, After playing many years, my motivation was never to login time and time again to finish my quests or to pick up my in game mail, or peruse the auction house for deals. I came back because my friends or guildmates had an event. An event to raid a dungeon, to level some alts, or just to participate in seasonal events. I felt the addition of the calendar by WoW was brilliant.
And as the months and years went by I noticed games like GW2, Lotro, and WoW and probably many other MMO's added events or content on a regular basis. They were smart to realize that people came back to participate in an event.
*Note about the blog---these are a work in progress, better insights and information will be curated as I can dedicate more time and effort
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Metaverse pt 2: World Building
IT is a world
Only after playing for a few weeks did I realize that I needed to take 2 boats and run my character through multiple zones in order to unlock flight paths (flying taxis). It was such a grind, but as I ran, I would see different creatures, the landscape would change, there would be landmarks, I would encounter other players, pick up new quests . If I would have fast traveled to these areas I would have missed all that. It seemed as if the slower I went, the more the world felt like a place. Even when I'm taking a flight from Stormwind to Stranglethorn Vale, I'm able to see the world change around me. This was a world---- with destinations that had a beginning and an end.
In our world, if I want to travel to New York City from California, I would either have to walk, take a train, travel in a car, or an airplane. For the same reason people say its better to travel by car or walk because you get to "see the country"that I feel developers need to force their players to see their world.
A lot of these new games install fast travel (or instant travel) to appease the many that say "it takes too long to run through the Barrens". They should take a note from WoW, or Bethesda games and force their players to run through it---even multiple times.
Only after playing for a few weeks did I realize that I needed to take 2 boats and run my character through multiple zones in order to unlock flight paths (flying taxis). It was such a grind, but as I ran, I would see different creatures, the landscape would change, there would be landmarks, I would encounter other players, pick up new quests . If I would have fast traveled to these areas I would have missed all that. It seemed as if the slower I went, the more the world felt like a place. Even when I'm taking a flight from Stormwind to Stranglethorn Vale, I'm able to see the world change around me. This was a world---- with destinations that had a beginning and an end.
In our world, if I want to travel to New York City from California, I would either have to walk, take a train, travel in a car, or an airplane. For the same reason people say its better to travel by car or walk because you get to "see the country"that I feel developers need to force their players to see their world.
A lot of these new games install fast travel (or instant travel) to appease the many that say "it takes too long to run through the Barrens". They should take a note from WoW, or Bethesda games and force their players to run through it---even multiple times.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Experiences in a metaverse
My awakening in a metaverse was truly an amazing experience:
My first time was when I played a very low level Night Elf character, in WoW. I would search out female players that were fishing in Darkshore (mostly in Auberdine) and near their fishing line I would wait for their bob to go up and down and I would jump out of the water and surprise them, as a buffed shirtless Night Elf, and say something like-----"Wow, look what you caught!!" and strike up a convo with them. Most of the time I would strike up a good conversation without the awkward roleplaying.
Little pieces like this would occur all the time when I first started playing WoW and I started to realize that:
This is a world
My first time was when I played a very low level Night Elf character, in WoW. I would search out female players that were fishing in Darkshore (mostly in Auberdine) and near their fishing line I would wait for their bob to go up and down and I would jump out of the water and surprise them, as a buffed shirtless Night Elf, and say something like-----"Wow, look what you caught!!" and strike up a convo with them. Most of the time I would strike up a good conversation without the awkward roleplaying.
Little pieces like this would occur all the time when I first started playing WoW and I started to realize that:
This is a world
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