In an awesome talk at GDC, Jeff Kaplan speaks out about 9 problems with questing in WoW.
I have to say that I agree with all of these, except one:
I actually wish that the number was smaller. I think it’s great to limit people in how much pure text they can force on the player. Because honestly… if you ever want a case study, just watch kids play it, and they’re just mashing the button. They don’t want to read anything.
I also loved this quote:
I’m as guilty of this as anyone else. We’re so fortunate and privileged to work in a medium that is not only an art, but a revolutionary interactive form of entertainment. It’s unfortunate to see so many games try to be what they’re not, including our game at times. Of course we should embrace the concept of story… art, literature, film, song, they’ve all embraced story as well. But they all tell it in their own unique way.
I feel like we need to deliver our story in a way that is uniquely video game. We need to engage our audience by letting them be the hero or the villain or the victim. [Art, film, literature], they’re tools. But we need to engage our players in sort of an inspiring experience, and the sooner we accept that we are not Shakespeare, Scorsese, Tolstoy or the Beatles, the better off we are.
It’s refreshing (although not surprising) to hear that Kaplan agrees on WoW’s questing shortfalls. I do love WoW, but he’s right that 8 of those 9 things are detractors for me.
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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I actually agreed with that one more than I did most of the other ones because we are game designers, not novel writers. To me, overly long quest intros are the kind of amateur mistake that professional writers warn against when they say “show don’t tell.” We have the advantage within game design of having every conceivable methodology of showing, video, music, audience participation and kinetic text all at our fingers. We really don’t have tons of excuse for then devolving into telling everything and showing nothing.
What an interesting read. It’s great to hear that the WoW developers can recognize what they’ve done wrong and what they need to improve on. I wish more game designers were open in that way.
As a side note, I was a little appalled by the language Kaplan used. “Shitty”, “fucking”, and “asshole” from a professional game developer at a designer conference? I was raised to believe that people who use expletives are simply unable to articulate themselves properly. Plus, at the risk of sounding like a prude, it seems that one should behave professionally at a professional conference (even if it is a more laid-back environment). My definition of professionalism does not include casual use of expletives.
An overabundance of articulation, overbearingly long words, and the tacit implication of requiring a dictionary on hand to be understood is a sign of someone simply being unable to express themselves well. Sometimes, something simply is shitty, or someone was an asshole. Why take any longer to say it than you really need to? Expletives are as much part of the English language as any other word, and often convey meaning particularly well so long as they aren’t overused.
Someone was an asshole? Okay, sure. That thing was shitty? A little extreme, but fine. “Fucking”? Where does it fit in? It’s extraneous.
Personally, I prefer not to use expletives. If I’m in a situation where I can’t articulate myself properly, i.e. a heated argument with a family member, I will resort to using them. If I was responsible for giving a speech relating to my job, however, I wouldn’t feel comfortable using expletives. Kaplan apparently does. He can do as he likes, but I think the colorful language takes away from the content of his speech. It makes him sound like a foul-mouthed ‘tween.
You are talking about a guy who had an EQ name of “Tiggole Bitties”
His comments and contribution to WoW have never impressed me.
I have high hopes WoW will get *alot* better now that he’s gone.
I rather like quest text as well. I do the same thing, I can get a bit irritated if people rush me along, not giving me time to read the quest text. I think this calls back to my issues with Runes of Magic – the quest text there is minimal at best, from what I had seen. It further pushed me out of the world. I like being immersed in another world, so… anything that expands on lore and helps to do that is good in my book.
What an interesting read. It's great to hear that the WoW developers can recognize what they've done wrong and what they need to improve on. I wish more game designers were open in that way.
As a side note, I was a little appalled by the language Kaplan used. “Shitty”, “fucking”, and “asshole” from a professional game developer at a designer conference? I was raised to believe that people who use expletives are simply unable to articulate themselves properly. Plus, at the risk of sounding like a prude, it seems that one should behave professionally at a professional conference (even if it is a more laid-back environment). My definition of professionalism does not include casual use of expletives.