Intro to Game Design and Production II

Hello everyone who reads this blog (or if anyone other than my professors and TAs actually read this blog) I'm back for another year of blogging for school (I would write personal blogs but I'm kinda lazy in my free time so no). Now on to the main topic of this blog post, GAME DESIGN AND PRODUCTION II!!!! That's right for everyone who read my blog posts last year, you will know that I had a class last year called Game Design and Production where we learned about the mechanics of game design, how to make games, the different types of game and actually made a ton of board games. Well my class this year is basically the upgraded version of that class but with a twist and the image below should give you a hint to what that twist is (what you thought I was going to just come out and tell you, pffft no way where's the fun in that).

Did you guess what the twist is yet? (Well if you did congratulations, if you didn't don't worry I'll tell you anyways). That's right this year my teacher decided to run our class like a MMO game, with quests and guilds, the whole nine yards. Now if you are wondering how on earth can you have a class run like an MMO, they are online games, well there are numerous components of our class that is online, like this blog for example.  

Now I'm not going to lie when my professor first mentioned that our class was going to be like a game I literally thought that this was going to be the biggest pain in the butt ever, however as he was going through how the class worked it actually started to sound kinda cool. Now I never play MMO's (mostly because I don't like gaming with other people because they drive me crazy) so having a class that is run like an MMO would have been my worst nightmare especially since I wouldn't know how to play MMOs, however I got lucky that my friend got my to start playing one this summer (I'm actually kinda of addicted to it it's bad guys like seriously but that's not the point I was getting at) so when we started discussing how the class works I got really excited, especially when we go to the quests section (I"m like seriously addicted to completing quests that's how I went from level one to level 40 in less than 4 days in the MMO I'm currently playing).

So now I'm going to go over a quick summery of how my class is set up and my thoughts on the whole thing.

So for this class there are a few different things you can do to gain XP to level up your character (or you know your grade), there is fighting monsters, crafting items, and questing. These can be done by yourself or with your guild (I was recruited to my guild without even noticing it, seriously guys Rohit was like 'Laura you are in our guild' and I was like 'Ok whatever' and then I realized what he was talking about). Now stuff like writing a blog about the last class is a type of quest you can do on your own, but saying creating a digital game prototype is a quest you can only do with your guild. Now you have to constantly collect XP from these tasks to level, and the higher you level the better your grade is and the more quests you can do, and you have to be at least level 9 to not receive a failing grade in this class (my goal is to reach level 20, Game Design God, which probably won't happen, but I'll be damned if I go down with out a fight).

My Thoughts 

Now I think this whole concept is pretty cool after I got over my whole 'what on earth is this' moment. I really think that this is a good way to get a group of game development students , who most of which are intense gamers, to get interested and excited about class. For those gamers who are achievement gamers like me, this is an awesome way to motivate us to gain XP so we can gain achievements and unlock more quests.

I'm really looking forward to this course, especially the online section of this course since I really like that fact that my professor is really taking advantage of the technology available, making this course a little bit more interactive. You aren't just going to class and listening to your teacher lecture for 2 hours, or however long your class is, this way we can actually interact with the other students and have discussions about what the professor is teaching about and maybe learn another view or side to what is being taught.

Though the one thing I have an issue with about the whole questing system, is that I feel like there should be quests related to the textbook. I mean we have a textbook for this class, but I know a lot people probably won't even look at. However if there were quests related to the textbook somehow or even secret/ special quests that you needed the textbook for I think more students wouldn't just ignore the textbook and actually read it.

On A Side Note:

If anyone was wondering what MMO I'm playing its called Eden Eternal and it is seriously entertaining, like you can customized the hell out of your character, choose from 5 different races and literally change your class when ever you feel like without creating a new or changing your character (its apparently the only MMO to let you do that). I'll post the trailer for the game below if you wanna check it out, and yes it's 100% free to play.