Post on 09-Feb-2023
The Perky Pug:engineering civic values
in World of Warcraft
John Carter McKnightAdjunct Professor of Law
Sandra Day O’Connor College of LawArizona State University
VWBPE 2011
WoW and governance•85 belf prot pally•adjunct professor of law•PhD student: governance of online communities
WoW: engineering values
Nation: values and goals through criminal law, tax incentives, wage & price levels
WoW: values and goals through software design, rule constraints and incentives, wage & price levels• Socially engineered, constantly modified polity of ~10 million people
so what are WoW’s values?
same as the culture it comes from
civic virtues and consumerism fundamental conflict civic virtues the big loser - we don’t really want them
not even the Perky Pug can change that
designed-in value conflict consumerism
• WoW from level cap to raiding (hundreds of hours of play) is *entirely* about working for money for better clothes and weapons
civic virtues• engineering cooperation and sound management of common resources has failed
• players are economically rational, not cooperative these goals are in fundamental conflict that conflict is a core experience of WoW
two sequential games WoW, like most MMOs, is *two* games• the leveling game• the endgame or raiding game
leveling: “alone together”
exploration of a virtual world “grind,” or ‘farming” + quests to level
enhance stats through better gear can be done any time, in any size chunks
less valued, seen as chore generally solo play + text chatting
raiding: advanced cooperation
10, 25 or (formerly) 40-person groups
set in a “dungeon” or equivalent: closed, bounded maze-like space
series of “bosses” leading to a main enemy to defeat
group commitment of 2-5 hours 4 or more times a week, plus extensive prep
how to give the masses a taste?
dungeons: • 5-person mini-raids spaced out every few levels
• optional content• much better rewards than questing, which make questing faster
social engineering 1 Leveling Guilds:
• ensure a pool of players to run dungeons with
• provide training through dungeons to enable raiding
• create trust through regular chat and occasional play together
social engineering 2 that wasn’t enough most players still soloed and thus didn’t get a taste of raiding
and an incentive to keep playing past the level cap
revolutionary pugging tool
computer-generated assembly of “pick-up groups” for dungeons
grouping across servers: little chance of ever running into the same player twice
vastly increased use of dungeons
engineered a “tragedy of the commons”
pugging for gear at level cap, you’re the *least* powerful
need to run dungeons to get currency or loot drops of better gear
in order to run “heroic” versions of the dungeons to get even better gearin order to raid….… if you have time/friends
farming heroics so the endgame for most became running the same handful of dungeonsover and over and over and over and over, in hopes of assembling a set of raiding gear
achievements to keep people doing this, “achievements” for using the Dungeon Finder
“Looking For More:” 10 random players
“Looking For Multitudes:” 10 achievement points for running heroics with 100 random players, plus title and pet
what’s a pug like? silence (“r?” “y”) greed (ninja looting) blaming others (rage-quitting) iLevel vetting (e-peen measuring)
memorized fighting with little challenge
why do it? dungeons are fun, and you don’t always have 4 friends around
most times, pugs are silent and efficient – if that’s your thing
it’s all about the e-peen, um, iLevel
designed-in value conflict
the Dungeon finder wants you to play together – but it wants you to get more stuff – even if you steal it
civic virtues vs. consumerism tragedy of the commons not just WoW - a fundamental tension in (at least) American culture
value conflict in game design
“fun is other people” but players want autonomy and other people often suck – because players want autonomy
thus: “fun is bragging to other people”
the bragging square web-based achievement/character display (DragonAge)
Xbox Live achievements Orgrimmar/Stormwind, Sunday afternoons
lessons virtual world exploration/play
rejected doesn’t speak to player values: efficiency and self-aggrandizement
people want to brag socially, not cooperate socially
lessons you can engineer collaboration a lot easier than you can civic virtues
incentives reward participation without addressing values/value conflict
don’t engineer values into conflict!
back to the classroom sense of mission of teaching
civic virtues but entirely geared to individual
achievement awards diplomas are our Perky Pugs this is broken at the design level – just like, and for the same reasons as, WoW is
what to do? don’t design value conflict in should we stop kidding ourselves, and declare civic virtues dead?
buy more stuff or, in academic-speak, “funding for further research is strongly indicated”