Whyville and Killers. What?
First of all, my visit to Whyville was a very unique experience. That place is quirky and very weird. But I think that has to do with the target audience being about ten years younger than I am.
Another interesting thing that I discovered was while the population meter read a steady 1.35 million people, I only ran into someone else once outside of the checker tables. It’s too bad too because I wanted to play an interactive 8 or 10 person game that looked like a lot of fun.
I think that conceptually Whyville doesn’t leave as much room for player types as many of the other games we’ve played over the last couple weeks, and this is really due to the more creative less confrontational tone for the game itself.
When you join, you’re presented with your first splash screen, and usually you’ll end up going to “Grandma’s House.” Soft colors and interesting visuals (very abstract as opposed to the simulated reality of many other games) that don’t seem too far-fetched but still draw the eye in a different way than most other games. Navigation is different than games like Puzzle Pirates or Second Life – you use a drop-down menu to actually move throughout the game. In my opinion, this creates a less immersive environment for players, and I think in a lot of ways the gameplay itself is driven by different primary agents than most other games.
Of the people that I ran into, EVERY one of them had personalized avatars with all kinds of weird cool hats, hairdos and glasses. When I tried to create my own, I was faced with a problem: I needed clams to buy things. I think that this is the aspect of the game specifically that drives players to play more – individualization of your appearance in-game. You earn clams by performing, and so by performing you make yourself look “cooler.”
So, applying player types to this game from last week’s reading, I would have to say that people congregate near other people (in my experience at places like the checker tables), and they are driven to look cool by their audience (other players). These two aspects of the game seem to be what drives the mechanic, and it doesn’t leave a lot of room for all griefing. Not to say that there isn’t because there will always be a way to take advantage of the situation to make people feel bad (or good, depending on the person), but the game itself seemed to promote a more monotone level of interaction that didn’t support extremes the same way that a game like Puzzle Pirates or World of Warcraft does.
The majority of players in the game would be socialisers, because the game itself makes communication one of the most important parts of player-to-player interaction. I would also hazard a guess that many players are “achievers” as well, but only to the extent of getting their character (in this case a head) to look like they want it. It really seemed like the game was centered around having fun with other players in the game.
Explorers are an interesting element of Whyville. I personally was an explorer when I joined because I wanted to get an idea of how the game worked and what was available for me to play with and look at. It also seems like the world itself is designed to be explored just from the first impression that the visuals give. There are also some interesting in-game places, like the “Illusion” house, in which there are many different little optical illusions that you can go and look at. This actually was what struck me as most interesting about the game – that within the player world it seemed like there was a specific emphasis put on making it interesting to go an explore, but it didn’t seem like many kids actually did. The vast majority of players just hung out where player-to-player interaction was strongest.
I’d like to draw a contrast between Whyville and Puzzle Pirates. Within the first minute that I was on the main island (after you disembark from your ship for the first time), someone asked me if I wanted to duel. While I was exploring the world further, I had at least 10 more people ask me if I wanted to duel or “swordfight.” Something tells me that Puzzle Pirates had a different dynamic than Whyville… maybe a little bit more competitive?
In conclusion, I would say that both Puzzle Pirates and Whyville have a ways to go before we can compare them to something as dynamic and user-oriented as a (the) Metaverse.