Background on Future Case Study

The case study that I’ve been working out over the past few weeks has been centered around understanding varying user experiences in the video game World of Warcraft. Similar to how the CDC used the game to better understand human behavior during a pandemic (see corrupted blood incident), this case study aims not at improving game play for a particular group but to extrapolate data from the study to how future user experience research might address diverse audiences in terms of their ability to engage with varying difficulties of engagement. The hope is that in extrapolating data from the case study in this way, it can be used to improve methodologies of user experience research across other types of applications. 

Known Personas

Since World of Warcraft is an open-world game with a non-linear storytelling design (you are not required to engage with any specific piece of content, essentially letting you craft your own narrative beyond the traditional narrative created by the game’s developers), there’s a number of different ways that people play the game that are obvious at first glance and even more if you spend time getting to know the community a bit more. For this case study, I’ve brainstormed a few personas from my own experiences playing the game with the following section focusing on a survey that I may employ to get a better understanding of the nuances within these persona categories and to identify and personas I might have missed. It’s worth noting that these personas may have crossover, players engage with multiple forms of content and as a result they’re likely to occupy multiple personas. This is especially true in cases where a player commits more time to the game and thus needs to engage in additional content to fill that time. 

“Casual” Player

This is more of a distinction than an independent category for a persona, and the same goes for the “hardcore” player. A casual player is oftentimes a player that either doesn’t have a lot of time to play the game or doesn’t want to put most of their time playing video games into this one in particular. These players usually are seen as players that engage with content at a surface level (easier difficulty content, or limit their engagement to a singular type of content) and are generally seen as the player base by being worse at the game in comparison to more invested players. Despite this, these players make up the vast majority of the community.

Because these players engage with content at a lesser level than the more invested players, they also engage with information about the game in different ways. There are a variety of fan-sites dedicated to sharing information about World of Warcraft, such as wowhead, warcraft logs, raidbots, Youtube and Twitch pages, raider.io, and more depending on the specific forms of content you’re engaged in. The casual player is assumed to engage with these sites less than more dedicated players, however survey data must be acquired to see how a casual player engages with these sites in ways that might differ from “hardcore” players. 

“Hardcore” Player

The “hardcore” player, as alluded to, differs from the “casual” players through their time dedicated to the game. These players tend to engage with more information found outside of the game, tend to engage in content that increases player power regardless of where that player power comes from (more likely to engage in multiple content types), and likely engage in one content type at a higher level than the average player. In other cases, player power is less of a concern and instead these players seek to demonstrate their ability with the game at higher levels, either through completing difficult limited time content or competing with other players. Websites such as raider.io and warcraftlogs maintain dynamic leaderboards measuring player performance in different types of content and these are often the outlets where these players compete rather than within the game itself. 

A different type of player within this category may be the “professional” player, a player who completes content at the highest level or competes with others in player-versus-player (pvp) content at the highest level. These offshoots of the “hardcore” player are usually sponsored by an esports organization and generate content that “hardcore” players use to improve their own play. These players are unique to the casual > hardcore > professional dynamic in that they are usually limited to three activities rather than the full scope of what the game offers, raiding, dungeoneering, and pvp. 

New Player

New players fall outside of the casual – hardcore player dynamic in that these players usually are working their way up to max level, a prerequisite for engaging with other forms of content that the game has to offer. For my user experience research, this is a category that I’m interested in specifically because of the data that they can offer regarding their ability to acclimate to new experiences. While the average new player experience is oriented around a slow introduction to game concepts through leveling, user testing for this group will look different for me due to time constraints. Instead of focusing on implementing long term testing, supplemental programs and interviews will be used to gauge what their experiences might be like with the game itself.

Raider

The following classifications are based around the types of content that users engage with. While these categorizations are more focused on the primary form of content the user engages with, there are circumstances where certain users will cross over into other areas of the game for various reasons.

Raiders are players that tend to focus on late-game content that tasks players with building a substantial group (10-30 players) to complete extended boss fights. These players most often join or create guilds, large groups of players to form groups from, in order to complete such content. Raids are semi-repeatable content – each boss can only be killed once per week, per difficulty level, making this a player type that engages with their primary form of content less often than they might with other forms of content that increase player power. A common crossover is between raiders and dungeoneers. Raiders will complete dungeon content in order to obtain items that will help them in raids, but usually at a limited level of difficulty as opposed to how dungeoneers engage with the same content. 

Dungeoneer

Dungeoneers engage most often with Mythic + dungeons, dungeons with scaling difficulty which increase in level when completed within a certain time limit. They exhibit similar behaviors to raiders in that they will complete raid content to get items that help them in dungeons, but this shouldn’t be seen as their primary form of engagement with the game. The most important aspect of this player type is that they’re engaging in repeatable content – they can complete one dungeon and repeat it immediately after if they want without any penalty. Because of this, they may invest more time into the game, but further surveying or interviews would be needed to know for sure. 

Collector

Collectors’ focus is less on completing difficult content and more on collecting various things within the game. Mounts, toys, pets, armor appearances, achievements, titles, etc. are all potential things that these players pursue in the game. These players have varied engagement with others, since most collectables can be obtained independent of content that involves other players, but more experienced collectors will crossover into every other player category due to unique obtainable items from raids, high level dungeons, pvp, or that require extremely high amounts of in-game currency. Despite there being a finite number of collectables, due to the game’s expansive backlog of content there’s almost always something that these players can pursue. While dungeoneering and raiding has some control over what can be completed if you have a consistent group, collecting items is often at the mercy of the game’s internal random number generator with some collectors spending multiple years trying to get one item.

PVPer

PVP in World of Warcraft takes on the form of 4 main game types: normal battlegrounds (team-based game modes such as capture the flag and king of the hill without the need for a premade group), solo-shuffle arenas (3v3 arena matches without needing a premade team), rated arenas (2v2 or 3v3 arena battles with premade groups where users compete for leaderboard positions), and rated battlegrounds (10v10 team-based game modes where users compete for leaderboard positions). Despite the variety of game modes to choose from, most pvpers will choose one type of game mode to pursue. While other user categories will engage with other content types, pvpers have a different progression of player power that is solely within pvp, meaning that they’re the one player group that oftentimes will not engage with those other types of content, or if they do in a limited capacity.

Gold Farmer

Gold farmers have the sole goal of accumulating wealth within the game. These players will flip items on the market, sell carries through mid-high level content, and provide loans in some cases to professional players (most often professional raiders). While pvpers are isolated due to their choice of content engagement, gold farmers are more isolated due to the lack of need for other players to complete content with. As a result, these users will be more difficult to test for and their behavior and play habits might need to be observed through other means than traditional user testing, surveying, or interviewing. 

Role-player

The last common player type is role players. These users engage primarily with the story that’s been crafted by the game’s developers through quests and other content types, and in many cases creating their own original characters that they place within the larger scope of the game’s universe. This play-type prioritizes player interaction on a more social level, rather than in an attempt to complete content. As such, these users should be observed based on their behavior in-game far more than how they perceive and overcome challenges – so documenting information regarding where, when, who, why, and how they engage with other players and possibly conducting interviews regarding their play habits since each will likely be unique.