Takeaways The New Player experience tends to follow the pattern of "teach the player three times" The Beautiful Path: WoW New Player Experience Critique The good: Effectively introduces the player to core mechanics and game loops in the game, as well as familiarizing them with controls and player progression systems. In the early parts of the tutorial sequence for WoW characters, the player is asked to hit a target dummy. The player is told via text, verbally, and then visually with obvious indicators to execute the attack. This combination of "teach the player three times" is a key lesson explained in one of our USC courses- games often have a lot going on, and their complicated systems require reinforcement and time for players to grasp them. The bad (what can be improved): Feels very much tutorial-y, and the premise of the locale, while believable, is not immersive and feels removed from the rest of the game and the way WoW is marketed to the public (there are
Why USC? Games. When I chose to attend USC for my bachelor's degree, I had to weigh a lot of options against each other. For one, I had an inclination to study out-of-state, trying to get out of my comfort zone of sunny California. University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) presented a great opportunity to pursue a degree in Computer Science and Philosophy, especially with my interest in Artificial Intelligence and growth of AI everywhere. That program nearly became my pick - attracted to the prospect of challenge combined with thinking about the ethics behind AI while I implemented it. UC Berkeley offered a similar opportunity to be on the cutting-edge of computer science, while being near Silicon Valley to sate my growing interest in entrepreneurship. Ultimately though, I just want to create positive experiences for people. Thus, USC has been a great decision, and much of my choice was driven by SC's(well deserved) prestige as a game design school. Junior year