imanism | Game Analytics with Lenses and Tools

World of Warcraft

Genre: Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG)
Website: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/

Lenses Used:

The Lens of Cooperation

Grouping up with various classes and having different roles eg. Tanker, Damage & Healer brings about social and cooperation value being in a team that beats various bosses and monsters.
The ability know what each other roles are even when they are complete strangers and eventually get to know each other
The mechanism to participate in Player vs. Player battles in a team through Battlegrounds having to beat the other team of real players through proper strategy and cooperation between members to help each other with their specializations.
The ability to team up to 25 players in a raid brings about the feeling of being in a battalion fighting against the enemy for the good (bad for Horde). The developers have ensured that every 25 players will need to cooperate and perform their roles with due diligence in order to beat such bosses.

The Lens of Challenge

Challenges in the game start off easy and eventually gets tougher to beat with characters having to gear up with proper items and buffs before being able to defeat a boss.
Requires a deep understanding of the character that is being played especially the abilities of each character which are different based on the character’s class in order to react accordingly based on the situation of the battle or to maximize damage/healing/tanking with proper rotation of ability usage.
Developers continually introduce new challenges over the years where players can expect challenges and new game mechanics in order to defeat bosses that would otherwise wipe out the team for those ignorant of them.

The Lens of Simplicity/Complexity

Various numbers of classes and race combinations to play introduces a wide variety of different abilities.
It is definitely easy to start playing but tough to properly master a characters’ role and decide which abilities to choose.
The game world being very huge makes it complicated for new comers to start exploring and know where to go to perform various tasks. However, the developers have included a world map for explorers to explore easily with major cities marked on the map in case they get lost.
Recently, talent trees have been simplified by the developers to further simplify the complexity for casual players to readily pick up and play without putting too much thought into deciding where to spend ability points.

The Lens of Economy

Players have various ways to earn money: Completing quests, killing mobs, crafting items and selling, collecting raw materials for sale etc.
The developers have ensured that economy will always be stable where players are limited to take up only maximum of two professions where these professions are able to craft weapons and armors or even potions and buffs that will help to improve characters gears.
The inter-dependence between these professions result in creation of a vibrant market in the Auction House.

The Lens of Chance

Item drops are random in the game. Some items are known to drop in certain dungeons and areas.
The stronger the mob, the better chances of getting a good item. This is especially true for bosses where they will definitely drop a rare item but there will be a chance where it can drop a legendary item for a particular class and specialization.
Players are continually defeating bosses and mobs to obtain the best gear possible. Even after the bosses drop the item, it is usually the case that each player in the team will roll dices to determine who gets the item.

Game Analytics with Lenses and Tools