Since its release in 2004, World of Warcraft (WoW) has become one of the most popular video games worldwide. Boasting an estimated player base of 11.5 million subscribers, WoW has achieved broad appeal among individuals across different age groups, geographies, and levels of gaming experience. This unusually diverse adoption is, in large part, due to WoW’s design. The game developers were able to lower the barrier to entry for consumers with little gaming background without “dumbing down” the game for experienced players familiar with typical gaming conventions.
WoW is a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG)—a networked video game that allows thousands of players (represented by avatars) simultaneous play in a persistent virtual world, where they communicate and collaborate with each other. At its core, WoW is a high fantasy-themed game about progression through quests to increase a character’s level while slaying monsters to receive better armor and weapons. The game becomes considerably more complicated at higher levels.
To understand what made WoW so accessible and engaging, we conducted a yearlong study with twenty-two boys aged twelve to eighteen years. We held monthly face-to-face meetings and regularly played WoW with the participants online. As they progressed in the game, we observed their experiences, as well as our own, and identified four main strategies to consider when designing games:
- Keep the interface simple at first.
- Introduce information and functions as users need them.
- Minimize the amount of written information.
- Allow for interface customization.
Keep the Interface Simple at First
Not all of our participants had played WoW before taking part in our study. For those who were new to the game, WoW’s initially simple user interface meant that the boys were able to learn how to navigate it on their own with little facilitation from the researchers. We didn’t waste time writing game guides or even introducing the game. We just let them play.
A player’s screen begins with minimal buttons and icons (see Figure 1) then gradually builds up over time becoming highly complex (see Figure 2). This is key as users need time to adapt to the interface. In a highly graphical 3D virtual world like WoW, players, especially new users, can be overwhelmed with the sights and sounds of the environment. Bombarding them with a complex user interface creates a steep learning curve leading to frustration.
In WoW, an experienced player’s screen may contain sixty different icons and buttons. New players, on the other hand, start with only a handful of elements on their screen: their avatar’s portrait on the top left, a mini map on the top right, a few system icons on the bottom right, and two to four ability buttons on the bottom left. As players progress in the game, they accumulate ability buttons. Various other options and interfaces are unlocked as well. For the boys in our study, playing through the first several levels was the best way to become comfortable with navigation and to experience firsthand how their repertoire of skills and abilities builds over time.
Introduce Information and Functions as Users Need Them
The technique of progressive disclosure has new characters start with a simple interface and then build up complex functions over time—introducing features only as players need them to complete the task at hand (see Figure 3). For example, early in WoW, players are asked to complete a quest requiring them to slay a certain number of monsters. Upon traveling to the monsters’ location, a question mark icon flashes along the bottom of the screen. Players then receive a tutorial pop-up with tips about how to target the monsters in order to combat them. This information is introduced right when players need it and can practice the particular skill.
This design strategy is important, as people—especially children and youth—are bad at dealing with information outside of its context for action. Information presented out of context or not immediately used is less likely to be remembered.
Minimize the Amount of Written Information
While it is important to give players information as they need it, for a game as vast as WoW it would annoy players if a tutorial window popped up every minute of gameplay. Eventually, players obtain a good handle on the basics and can be self-sufficient without relying on tips. Therefore, it is important to provide written information to players only when it is essential, such as in the beginning levels when players may not know where to look for information on their own yet.
Most MMOGs have a built-in chat function, where players can talk to others logged on to the game world at the same time. As players progress, they begin to chat with others and can ask for information about more advanced game mechanics and concepts, as they need it.
There are also many user-produced guides and online tutorials available for most commercial games. In our study we observed the boys routinely switching between the game and online resources such as Wowhead and WoWWiki (see Figure 4). While many of these resources are written by adults and often in highly specialized language, younger players are willing to overcome these challenges. If a task is worth accomplishing, players will seek resources to help them accomplish it. All information isn’t, and shouldn’t be, provided in the game itself.
Allow for Interface Customization
Much like the add-ons you can install for Internet browsers, add-ons enhance and personalize WoW’s user interface. As players gain expertise and their screens fill with numerous icons and buttons, they develop their own styles of gameplay which can be enhanced with personalization. For example, a popular add-on called Cartographer improves the in-game map by allowing players to mark their locations. If mining is your avatar’s profession, Cartographer enables you to map the locations of ores in an area.
Allowing players to develop and use these add-ons not only optimizes their efficiency but also helps build the player community. A number of the boys in our study have add-ons installed on their home computers and frequently share in our guild (group) chat channel the ones they currently use.
Even though the game is entirely functional without add-ons, when we provided computers for participants to use during our face-to-face meetings, they complained about the lack of add-ons. Our study participants have come to rely so heavily on them as part of gameplay that they expressed feeling handicapped without them.
While we draw from our research with adolescent boys who play WoW to show that much of these design heuristics will help make MMOGs more accessible for youth, these strategies will, in fact, help make a game more accessible for individuals of all ages. Additionally, because these strategies are employed mostly during moments of solo play in a multiplayer game, they will also prove useful for designing single player games requiring low-barrier entry points. The above design heuristics are relevant not just to MMOGs, but should be considered when designing other (play-based or otherwise) technologies as well.过去 10 年间，视频游戏产业已经获得了巨大的动力，在此期间，像 Blizzard Entertainment 的 魔兽世界（World of Warcraft，WoW）等游戏的财务收益颇丰。WoW 玩家群有 1,150 万订户，遍及全球各地，有儿童，也有年长者。Blizzard 实施了大量的设计战略来吸引如此庞大的受众，不仅有游戏经验丰富的个人，也有几乎没玩过游戏的人。为突出介绍用于提供最佳用户体验的策略，这篇文章提供四种从调查中获得的设计启发式规则，调查对象为玩 WoW 的青春期男孩：
• 首先保持界面简单。
• 引入用户所需的信息和功能。
• 最大程度减少书面信息量。
• 支持界面个性化定义。
这篇文章介绍的启发式规则不仅适用于诸如 WoW 之类的视频游戏设计，而且还广泛适用于设计其他游戏和技术。
文章全文为英文版ビデオゲーム業界はここ10年間にものすごい勢いで成長し、Blizzard EntertainmentのWorld of Warcraft（WoW）など、経済的な面での成功もよく知られている。WoWのプレイヤーの基盤となるのは、子どもから高齢者までを含む世界各地の1,150万人の契約利用者だ。Blizzardは、非常に多くのゲーム体験を持っている人からほとんど経験のない人を含む幅広いオーディエンスにアピールできるよう、数々のデザインストラテジーを採用してきた。最適なユーザエクスペリエンスを提供するために使われたストラテジーに注目し、この記事では、WoWをプレイする思春期の少年達を対象とした調査から導き出された4つのヒューリスティックス(発見的手法)を提示する。
• 最初のインタフェースはシンプルにすること。
• ユーザの必要に応じて情報や機能を紹介すること。
• 記述された情報の量は最小限にすること。
• インタフェースのカスタム化を可能にすること。
この記事で説明されるヒューリスティックスはWoWのようなビデオゲームに関連があるばかりではなく、その他のタイプのゲームやテクノロジーにおいても幅広く活かすことができる。
原文は英語だけになります
