Digital Games
1. Try to find an example of a digital game which truly takes advantage of the traits of the medium, and could not be successfully implemented in a non-digital form. In particular, think about the traits of digital/computer games as listed by Crawford. Describe the game, and identify the core gameplay mechanic. What is it about the core mechanic that makes the game truly a digital game?
I'll be blogging about World of Warcraft, as there were some aspects to that game that Paul didn't mention in his blog.
One aspect which makes World of Warcraft a truly digital game is the idea of instancing. For those who are unfamiliar with that term, it's where a copy of a dungeon is specially created for a group of party members. So you can have like ten groups all exploring different copies of the same type of dungeon and doing the same quests at the same time, but they won't ever meet each other since they're not actually in the same place. Instancing is a term that is often used in computing, which is why I say that it makes the game digital. Also, it would be pretty hard to run several copies of the dungeon simultaneously without using digital technology. I'd imagine that the DM would have a headache trying to do that all by himself for a pen & paper RPG. It might be possible for a few DMs to try and run the game at the same time for the different groups, but it would difficult, nonetheless, and even moreso for large numbers of groups.
The second aspect would be the combat system itself, whether it's against computer-controlled enemies or against real players. That are so many stats that come into play, and they all affect how will players can deal and resist damage against opponents. There's stats from the character screen (Intelligence, Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, etc), stats from the armour and other items that can be worn or carried, stats from weapons and stats from spell buffs that are meant to boost your stats. There's also resistance stats, and weapon skills stats. Imagine having to keep track of all these stats when playing a pen & paper version. Sounds tough? Try taking into account the opponents stats as well, and how much damage they can deal out. The thing about it being done on a computer is that the player doesn't have to worry about all the complicated calculations and just focus on the gameplay, since the computer handles all that. This also makes combat appear more real-time than say combat in a board game or a pen & paper RPG, since there are no awkward pauses or waiting time as the players figure out how much to add or subtract from the attacks.
The accumulation of honour points in the pvp Honour System Rankings also makes it digital. There's calculation involved for every honourable/dishonourable kill or deed that the player performs, and all scores are ranked against other scores once every week to determine who rises or falls a rank. Players are then giving a numerical standing and a rank, while the full ranking details would be available on the website itself. While this could conceivably be done through non-digital means, it would be painfully tedious to do that for thousands of people. Like the example regarding the combat system, the computer just makes life easier.
The chat system is my fourth and final example of what makes a game digital, because it's closely related to information hiding. You can choose what type of chat you want to use (Say, Whisper, Party, Raid, Guild, and Shout), all of which determines who gets to see it. 'Say' allows only those near the player's PC to see the message. 'Whisper' allows only one recipient to see it, as the name suggests. 'Party' allows all in the group (five players) to converse without anyone outside hearing them, while 'Raid' allows all in the raid group (usually a group of 20-40 players) to see, and 'Guild' allows all in the guild to see. 'Shout' is used when you want everyone in the same location to receive the message. Also, World of Warcraft also developed this filter for the chat system which prevents Horde and Alliance from speaking to each other, so anything that a Horde player types can be seen by other Horde players but would appear as gibberish to Alliance players, and vis versa. Non-digital games don't really provide much tools to aid or make private any communication between players.
I'll be blogging about World of Warcraft, as there were some aspects to that game that Paul didn't mention in his blog.
One aspect which makes World of Warcraft a truly digital game is the idea of instancing. For those who are unfamiliar with that term, it's where a copy of a dungeon is specially created for a group of party members. So you can have like ten groups all exploring different copies of the same type of dungeon and doing the same quests at the same time, but they won't ever meet each other since they're not actually in the same place. Instancing is a term that is often used in computing, which is why I say that it makes the game digital. Also, it would be pretty hard to run several copies of the dungeon simultaneously without using digital technology. I'd imagine that the DM would have a headache trying to do that all by himself for a pen & paper RPG. It might be possible for a few DMs to try and run the game at the same time for the different groups, but it would difficult, nonetheless, and even moreso for large numbers of groups.
The second aspect would be the combat system itself, whether it's against computer-controlled enemies or against real players. That are so many stats that come into play, and they all affect how will players can deal and resist damage against opponents. There's stats from the character screen (Intelligence, Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, etc), stats from the armour and other items that can be worn or carried, stats from weapons and stats from spell buffs that are meant to boost your stats. There's also resistance stats, and weapon skills stats. Imagine having to keep track of all these stats when playing a pen & paper version. Sounds tough? Try taking into account the opponents stats as well, and how much damage they can deal out. The thing about it being done on a computer is that the player doesn't have to worry about all the complicated calculations and just focus on the gameplay, since the computer handles all that. This also makes combat appear more real-time than say combat in a board game or a pen & paper RPG, since there are no awkward pauses or waiting time as the players figure out how much to add or subtract from the attacks.
The accumulation of honour points in the pvp Honour System Rankings also makes it digital. There's calculation involved for every honourable/dishonourable kill or deed that the player performs, and all scores are ranked against other scores once every week to determine who rises or falls a rank. Players are then giving a numerical standing and a rank, while the full ranking details would be available on the website itself. While this could conceivably be done through non-digital means, it would be painfully tedious to do that for thousands of people. Like the example regarding the combat system, the computer just makes life easier.
The chat system is my fourth and final example of what makes a game digital, because it's closely related to information hiding. You can choose what type of chat you want to use (Say, Whisper, Party, Raid, Guild, and Shout), all of which determines who gets to see it. 'Say' allows only those near the player's PC to see the message. 'Whisper' allows only one recipient to see it, as the name suggests. 'Party' allows all in the group (five players) to converse without anyone outside hearing them, while 'Raid' allows all in the raid group (usually a group of 20-40 players) to see, and 'Guild' allows all in the guild to see. 'Shout' is used when you want everyone in the same location to receive the message. Also, World of Warcraft also developed this filter for the chat system which prevents Horde and Alliance from speaking to each other, so anything that a Horde player types can be seen by other Horde players but would appear as gibberish to Alliance players, and vis versa. Non-digital games don't really provide much tools to aid or make private any communication between players.
posted by Swift at
9:19 pm
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