Generation Zero is part of the first-person genre of games and is an easily recognizable franchise from its sister series that includes Just Cause 4, Rage 2, and Mad Max, which have similarities more in the games’ environment, setting, and survival gameplay than game mechanics. Coming from Avalanche Studios and configured for the major gaming systems (Microsoft Windows, Xbox, PS4 platforms as of 2019) and as a solo or social online game for four players, Generation Zero is also economically more affordable. When starting the game in the little village that allows you to configure your collected weaponry, Generation Zero is an immersive world that allows you to roam across an archipelago of 80 heavily forested islands while in the action of locally stalking and executing the mechanical invaders which much earlier attacked and conquered the entire region, downing undefended small solitary ships with an arrow pointed in the direction of your gaze. With a map that is free for you to explore, detailed weather systems allowing you to plan your forays, and collect from a few citizens the broken pieces and items that will assist in your continuous progress, locating in-game quests becomes key in progressing. These tasks, when complete, open the game world up more and also offer other quest-like perks such as more weaponry or valuable resources. However, what defines a quest in Generation Zero and do the rewards given upon its completion reflect the challenge of the quest? To explore if the rewards correlate to the challenge of the quest and to propose potential other interesting big data analysis questions, we conducted two different exploratory data analysis exercises using small, medium, and large in-game data samples.
First-person and third-person shooters share a number of factors that make them very rewarding. Whether it is the headshot of an enemy or the dodging of bullets, shooters are packed full of adrenaline-pumping action that can turn even the newest of players into hardened warriors. It is no wonder then that when we look into the online webstore, the most popular games and franchises for home consoles and personal computers are what we traditionally know as third-person and first-person shooters. These franchises have set such high standards for realism, animations, and weaponry that despite other game genres growing in their expertise, this trio is difficult to unbalance. It seems that the trailblazing work of Capcom on the Resident Evil series, not to forget earlier horrors like Doom and Quake, or the adventurous first-person platforms from Tomb Raider onwards, have been proven right time and time again – albeit with a few forays into the likes of Standout VR, Gorn, and Blades and Sorcery, to name a few.
1.1. Overview of the Game
1.2. Background There are a variety of action, sandbox, or first-person shooter games that focus on activities for players to explore. Discrete goals, rewards, knowledge, or progress can be considered as the achievements of players in the game. In this study, we focus on the different types of in-game quests and rewards in Generation Zero. In addition to helping game developers improve and balance the game system, this research can also provide recommendations to those designing gamification systems for many purposes such as education and motivation based on gaming experiences. Furthermore, it provides motivations that are related to those in traditional textbooks such as instructional manipulation, challenge, and curiosity. With players placed in the gamified environment, players tend to seek information independently, thereby stimulating their curiosity and willingness to continue learning in low but satisfying challenging task activities.
Generation Zero is an open-world, first-person shooter game published and developed by Avalanche Studios. The gameplay takes place in an alternative version of Sweden in the 1980s where advanced machines are roaming. The goal and story of the game are basically to uncover what has happened in the apocalyptic world and why the sudden mass disappearance of human beings on the islands of the game’s fictional map has happened. There are a few missions or quests players can follow to help uncover these puzzles. The game is constructed as an open-world, action, shooter-survivor game. Players can explore different kinds of quests or activities in the game. They can also explore the map by creating their own paths, searching for collectibles, or simply fight against the machines and strengthen their survivors.
1.2. Gameplay and Mechanics
This technique, involving conditional reinforcement, was employed extensively in MMO games through what are known as quests. Although casual games found at gamification websites and applications rarely utilize very unique game mechanics and rewards, many very successful games on these platforms have offered simple award techniques and functional non-immersive entertainment that cause addiction thanks to user interaction.
To encourage audience participation, games award goals that award the player with points, levels, badges, trophies, leaderboards, or by collecting medals, achievements, money, or collectibles. Doing so results in designing a target behavior which then turns into a task or activity when converted into a game mechanic, which then turns into a reward when overlapped with a form of incentive.
Game mechanics are designed independently of one particular game; instead, many games can share the same mechanics, showcasing particular conventions which are then transformed into dynamics that are interactive, upon which also carries a particular aesthetic.
In a video game, game mechanics validate and manifest as in-game feedback presented as visual or audio stimuli that are designed to capture attention. The game eventually rewards actions taken by the player once a certain task has exceeded expectations. This is what entices a person to interact with the game and generates what is at the core of the person-computer interaction: intrinsic motivation.
Gameplay in typical video games is governed by one or more predetermined mechanics, likely specially designed to be enjoyed by the player while playing. It would appear that the gameplay mechanics that can be employed in games today are close to becoming boundless, as games can become a hybrid of real-world features such as virtual reality and augmented reality, linked to the digital processing power behind each game engine. The advancement of these game engines can thus lead to the creation of more complex game mechanics.
2. Importance of Quests in Video Games
There are various differences and/or similarities between the aspects of different RPGs of the interactivity, variety, and types of quests in the game I’ve shown above. The value that side quests bring to the game is important: not only does the gamer get to know the world of the game in much more detail, but quests often create simple stories that immerse the gamer in small, but always with a very entertaining plot. Filling the world with interesting people and points of attention is a major benefit of side quests. The way you can explore the world and dive into your beauty by doing various activities (it is here that many gamers feel for the first time that they are part of a great game) is a great value.
For example, in the popular game The Witcher 3, the side quests are pretty impressive with tasks varying from fighting with monsters, interrogating other NPCs, to following and investigating clues and solving puzzles. Based on the data of the side quests you have, the storyline can take a variety of different twists. For the main storyline, the quests are usually much more complex. You are usually required to travel from one place to another, gaining experience points and game money, with a final difficult task to accomplish. It is a basic structure that sounds very simple when written like that. But tasks can vary in scope and differences depending on the game itself.
Quests are an essential element of any RPG video game. They come both in the main storyline and in various side quests that you can intermix with the story. Everyone who has played any RPG type game probably knows what a quest is, but for those who don’t – quests are special tasks or missions that game NPCs will give you to accomplish something, bringing you experience, money, and kicking up the story reception a notch with the events in the game.
2.1. Definition and Purpose of Quests
The performance of a task, often for several characters, engages on top of a quest. When it is efficiently performed, the player should be allowed to proceed together with the development of the story of the game and probably be given some game reward. A quest could have a lot of subtasks that must be finished in order to continue. During in-game development, the performance of a character defines a progression whose volume is measured by a variable that changes its value continuously throughout the life of the game, which is called the progression of a quest. This variable represents the occurrence of the progression of events. At the commencement, the quest is in activity and its progression is equal to a value named the absence of progression or zero. Every progression gains an amount of experience when the subtask concludes.
A quest is a search for knowledge and self, when the hero is something like a knight or a seeker. Based on this characteristic, the character set was initially derived from personages as they are depicted in cultural journeys and several critical activities, such as books, movies, heroes from daily life actions. Quests come out as principles of several genres of travels, quests for the Holy Grail or explorations in search of knowledge or blessed items. Quests consist of a composition of activities. Every activity constitutes a task within the search.
2.2. Types of Quests
Rescue Quest: In a task that is considered a rescue quest, the player has to save NPCs from monsters infesting a house or another building or fend off monsters threatening a person. The player can approach an NPC and receive a reward regardless of whether the NPC rewards the player with an item, a side quest, or XP. These side missions are automatically received because the enemy attacks the surrounding NPCs. Some of the missions can be completed with stealth. The choice of quest determines how successful the player will be. Often it is an advantage to use a combination of tactics. For instance, it might be a good idea to use a combination of stealth to enter the building and then set traps for the monsters.
Collection Quest: In a collection quest, the player collects ingredients or objects to complete a mission. This kind of side task can be done in peace and quiet and the player does not have to fight any monsters to get the reward. The tasks vary in design; sometimes a couple of ingredients have to be found, and sometimes more ingredients have to be collected but need Open World Factions and the Explorer Skill from the Reward Tree. These collection quests are designed for the player to complete to get resources for reward advancement.
Village Quest: As Hansson describes, a village quest can be to protect a village from monster attacks. A village quest can be a small main mission taking place in an urban environment designed containing story elements. The player can take the initiative to do these side tasks and do not have to be directly involved with story events in the game. These tasks are mainly designed for the player’s reward advancement.
Generation Zero splits its in-game quests into four types: main missions and three types of side missions. The three types of side missions are smaller tasks that take little time to accomplish and get tutorials by the game. During the latter stages of the tutorial, the side missions serve as tools for reward advancement. We will now introduce the different quests found in Generation Zero.
3. Quest Design in Generation Zero
Generation Zero tells a story about Earth after a failed alternate-history experiment in a Swedish simulation game world known as Östertörn. It is a place of peace with more than 25 quest objectives. Most of these are directly bound to the main quest, while others are intricate side stories that cross your journey. By completing these objectives, players gain access to the lore hidden in the fantastic world, such as letters left by the story’s protagonists. Accomplishment with each quest receives cash, experience, and access to the game’s most elusive resources earned through mostly hunting and slaying big, articulate robotic opponents while searching for the secrets is also offered. Accomplishment of more of these secret sites will offer more and better financial or strategic benefits, as well as the figure of the hostile machines capable of sneaking in after your co-op squad without consent. Common combats are wild fights, as the robots are equipped with hit-scan weapons and have a relatively higher health pool that does not allow the development of cover-facing tactics applied to human enemies in regular open-world quest-based RPGs.
In this section, we discuss the main quests in Generation Zero and their rewards, as well as how games and other media outlets design quests and activities with unique rewards for further player motivation. We focus on scholarly theory and models in order to understand how this is done. We researched what could be considered typical patrols driven by story directives, unique fights, hidden treasures, lore/story progress, and unique resources. The quests in Generation Zero are items that belong to this category. Our interest lies, therefore, in discussing the methods used in designing and implementing this kind of quest and reward content that other games and media distributors might benefit from. First, we review how quests are structured in other games and media products. We also discuss the use of incentive rewards to motivate quest participation. Finally, we discuss the mission and reward model used in Generation Zero and what we could learn from it.
3.1. Storyline and Lore Integration
For the Conquest side missions and the three main missions (First Blood, Flying Blind, and Into the Fire), intense care was taken to ensure that all the story quests interconnected fluidly. Not only were locations situated in and around significant points of interest on the map (e.g. the shelter, the church, the airport), but there were also many props that foreshadowed approaching events, adding to the experience. This list includes graffiti with hints and inscriptions near locations to guide the players and serves as educational billboards for the underlying world background information. Additionally, the majority of the game world’s points of interest are given their unique emotional atmosphere with light, sound, combat, and decoration to enhance the storytelling. This befits the amusing 1980s setting which allows the game world to consist of a satisfying blend between romantic modern-normal and thrilling, potentially hostile, exciting danger. Finally, all cutscenes include the source of the recording character for an emphasis on being in the situation at the moment.
As presented in the background section of this paper, the integration of quests and rewards with the storyline and lore of the game was of particular importance for Generation Zero. To do this, the team at Avalanche Studios went to great lengths to create an optimal playing experience where story and lore are part of every quest in the game. It goes without saying that this goal was approached differently depending on the type of quest at hand. Before these can be described, it should be pointed out that since the development of the game, several updates have been released, with additional quests and rewards that will not be discussed here. However, the newly included quests do follow the same structure that was pre-defined for the game, with regards to lore and story alignment.
3.2. Mission Structures
Procedural quest generation, as an approach to less predictable missions, is a technique for inferring mission models from parameters pertaining to the desired mission. To offset the limitations of a pure single-knobs approach, other more domain-specific alternative techniques are presented. Additionally, to guarantee some level of variability, generative quest design—an iterative offline approach that allows the implementation of the quest model in pronounced and application-specific ways—is employed.
Challenges in games are provided by various means, one of which is via quests. Structurally, missions are made up of a number of activities. It has been shown that game developers conceptualize missions in terms of activities and employ lower-level activities to create the required variation within missions. Furthermore, a limited number of design patterns can serve as a starting point for creative missions. This suggests that if a process for generating less predictable missions can be put in place, it can serve as a foundation or framework to jumpstart creative mission design.
4. Rewards System in Generation Zero
To balance the pace problem, the randomness may exist in the rewards system, such as the type, quality, and value of each reward. This would help diversify the types of rewards and build pleasure states of curiosity-seeking and challenge-seeking. The asymmetric information of rewards may lead to social currency trading between players or social support-induced cooperation and exchange. In addition, if players have enough time to make their own decisions between rewards, they may feel more involvement and continued gameplay desire. To summarize, the most efficient and easiest way to unlock all the collectibles, fill the inventory, and develop high-level characters is to perform self-quests as quickly as possible as the rewards are pretty rich.
In Generation Zero, defeating enemies and completing quests give players opportunities to obtain new loot and improve their characters. Rewards usually consist of collectibles, such as different types of rivals and AI characters, consumable and non-consumable items, such as weapons, attachments, and ammo, as well as temporary or permanent buffs. The various types of rewards can all impact the gameplay experience in different ways. When frequent rewards are given to players, it may fit humans’ preference for immediate rewards and decrease the chance of quitting behaviors. The flow model also notes that continual rewards and feedback would help players to concentrate on the gameplay. Additionally, frequent, satisfying rewards have the potential to create a sense of achievement and facilitate emotional demand, increasing player engagement and enjoyment. However, too many internal buffs or too high-level loot would give instant gratification and shorten game time.
4.1. Types of Rewards
Other authors state that the quests in role-playing games offer players an opportunity to increase their power level, wealth, influence, capabilities, and supplies. Considering the Model of Goal Directed Behavior (MGB), there are three main incentives that drive the completion of a quest: gaining virtual goods, gaining virtual experience, and gaining virtual status. The rewards given by completing in-game quests correspond to the intrinsic incentives, what gives players a sense of satisfaction and boosts their self-determination. Rewards encourage players to carry on playing as they achieve self-satisfaction, enjoyment and increase their chances of success in the game. Post-game rewards (equipment, mods and whatnot) could have value in a future consecutive playthrough.
The types of rewards available in Generation Zero can be divided into three main categories: consumables, modifications (Mods), and collectibles. Consumable items include Health Packs which restore the player’s health, and Adrenaline shots which boost the movement speed for a limited period. The game world contains mods, which can be picked up by the player. Mods can give the weapon in question increased damage, accuracy or stability. The third type of rewards consists of collectible items. These are found around the game world in a variety of locations and are saved to the player’s inventory when picked up.
4.2. Incentives and Motivation
We believe that having everyone moving towards completed campaign missions as often as possible is also a big advantage for the group. In practice, the motivation occurs quite often, however, this may lead to abnormal or highly speculative behavior concerning other players. Some «Trains» may refuse to invest time and finish some of their built settlements only to avoid some of the missions. We are not sure if consecutive missions are too much stealth or avoidable, but this probable issue needs further evaluation. This reward system increases the motivation of all types of players and makes them eager to help each other. The system could be even further enhanced by improving the communication about the availability of new missions.
In addition to the collaborative factors mentioned previously, the game also features rewards. While these rewards might not motivate players to join a mission, they provide an element of progression in the game. Players can level up by killing robots and by eating, and even further by completing missions. By leveling up, players unlock skill points. Skill points can be invested so players acquire additional passive or new active skills. Especially «Trains» (created for almost the whole number of players in the game), might want to go for their own «level grind» or «quest grind», with only the purpose to actively search and complete the campaign missions because they are highly incentivized. Within the missions, they solve riddles, and finishing them will increase their level. If there is no mission available, they build up small settlements and/or outposts, and they also place a shelter box, where they store items they don’t carry with them.
5. Player Engagement and Retention
The study identified a selection of preferences and associated quests with varying levels of guidance to inform the design of enjoyable quests that engage Generation Zero players and help them return to explore the post-apocalyptic world. Quest rewards are a key component in the underlying economics of the game, with high-end missions being characteristically more difficult and demanding of players. The study provided important insights into the value of different kinds of quest rewards to players when they participate in these missions.
Our analysis of quests showed the importance of quest guidance, clarity, and the methods used to deliver these. We found player preferences for quests that followed hands-off quest guidance, through a need to discover and complete story arc elements in the world to avoid immersion-breaking experiences. The subtlety with which story elements were delivered was a factor in supporting this preference. We also found strong player associations between side quests and discovering story backstory elements, and a clear interest in open, evolving event triggers.
Generation Zero, a game produced by a small team with experience on MMORPGs, faces a similar challenge to engage players and to retain them over a dangerous post-apocalypse world map. However, it faces the additional challenge of being a post-apocalyptic exploration game with little social interaction between players. This paper has examined how quests and quest rewards are designed and how their underlying mechanics function as methods to engage players and promote their retention in Generation Zero.
Engaging players and retaining them is a challenge for any game. The lifeblood of any MMORPG is its ability to continuously provide engaging content that keeps players entering and investing time in its world. MMOs employ a range of methods to retain player interest. They encourage social interaction and collective activity. They provide sufficient challenges to sustain player interest and keep the game fresh.
5.1. Impact of Quests and Rewards
Statistics of provided in-game rewards were also studied. In this game, we have studied the drops of in-game fetching, not usual drops when the game progresses in play. The currently available in-game characters, their appearances, and behaviors are studied. They are studied in terms of why they are in-game rewards, how they are related to gameplay, and overall gameplay.
In this game, the typical playing quests exist. The most interesting finding was that in-game quests and rewards were not further important for Generation Zero. The very scarce amount of daily, weekly, and parallel activities participated indicates that this hypothesis might be valid. Interestingly, 50% of the weekly quests are not completed, while the majority of daily quests are completed. On the other hand, the dailies are the only ones which are labeled as requiring experience to complete. Daily quests are 4, and different players have completed them, including some of them more than once. The weekly quests are 2 of different types, and some have participated in them only once.
In-game quests and rewards are employed to immerse players into playing, reward playing, and maintain players’ motivation to play. The studied game maintains three ways of providing in-game quests and rewards: daily, weekly, and parallel activities. Thus, the study aims to examine the impact of in-game quests and rewards on gameplay in Generation Zero.
5.2. Community and Social Dynamics
Players themselves have devised the notion of «self-found» gaming; to one player, the only useful in-game reward is the knowledge that they have «built» their character solely from goods and resources that they have found themselves. The satisfaction then comes from the knowledge that their character is in some way «pure». Does meta-achievement hunting change if you adopt the position that Guild Wars Gold may be bought but talent and effort cannot? These concepts are not well researched yet, but they seem to be central to understanding why ours is such a unique market.
This work has largely focused on consumer behavior within the games environment. However, social identity process theories suggest that group membership and group behavior may be more influential at a very local level or within a small group. In a gaming environment, a small group can come together and disband quickly. Groups can be transient or more long-standing, but recognition and reward from these groups can be key to extended gameplay. To research in-game quests and rewards in a single-player game, we must also acknowledge the significance of a larger gaming community and some specific social dynamics and structures within it.
6. Case Studies and Examples
The game is currently designed with several group reward features (mainly better looting efficiency). We suggest rerouting this to be based on group task delegation/bots and/or team up objectives. We are currently in the implementation phase for the companion AIs’ movements and abilities and will survey players’ experiences regarding effective ways to rely on the virtual assistants or not in more detail in relation to these changes.
Tasks that could benefit from player cooperation would be to target, find, or protect other human players. The players could delegate to their separate agents to work together on a task, possibly with a general goal to «stay safe» and help locate other players close by, regardless of inherent attacks from the aggressive enemies in their vicinity.
One important task in the game could be to locate machine movements over great areas. By locating and following, or scaring them away, we can make their occurrence more fun and also create timing problems for their machine attacks, which could increase the risk and reward balance for the players.
Our initial experiences concerning delegation of tasks to specialized companion AIs were quite positive, but the artificial agents are not fully able to provide solutions to in-game problems. The AI experiences difficulty with combat and does not generate a lot of good solutions. Despite that, we believe that there are several areas that could greatly benefit from this feature in Generation Zero.
6.1. Notable Quests and Rewards in Generation Zero
Generation Zero is a 1980s open-world first-person survival video game released by Avalanche Studios in March 2019. During the days before its release, over 1500 reviews were posted on the game, some of which were neutral or negative with comments about purchased and bored. However, in the following days, more and more vent players shared their unsatisfactory experiences regarding boredom, lack of end game, and the limited number of in-game quests, which resulted in a lack of replayability. Although the game was attractive and received praise in terms of visual design and detail, the declining sales and downsizing of the studio made the release a tragic game development history. The game also lacked an official description of the reward system, and no previous research has systematically examined the user experience related to quests or rewards. In this study, we investigated 564 quests to locate the whereabouts of the experience, exploring whether these in-game quests have a structure and role that uses designed experience. Two objectives were also proposed, including: 1) conducting content analysis to describe the intermediate design of the quest; and 2) assessing the influence of the quest on system-focused gameplay using game mechanics and rewards.
In this paper, we explored quests and rewards in Generation Zero to investigate their structure and role and the extent to which they use designed experience. Our analysis of 564 in-game quests showed that most quests had the kill, search, and reach quest objectives. However, many gunfight-focused and explore-focused quests used purchase (approximately 46%) or learn (approximately 24%) quest objectives. We also found that quests often overlapped in individual destinations and sometimes had a network-like structure, connecting interdependent quests with set and make quest objectives. The findings suggested that quests in Generation Zero had a small amount of guiding and decision-making micro-objectives, but made greater use of rhythm gameplay and reflected exploration and system replayability in intermediate design, such as gunfight-dependent times, moving times, and rest times. Unfortunately, there were no free-form reward pickups or instant rewards. However, the game sometimes used competing and make reward objectives in an almost non-competitive way to encourage system-focused gameplay.
6.2. Successful Quest Design in Other Games
We then investigated what could frustrate the use of some mission types in an action game, so not every suggestion is directly applicable to other genres. There are intrinsic limitations that are game-agnostic which impact the use of different mission types. At a more detailed level, mission requirements (holding mission objects, time constraints, etc.) can lead to their own annoyance and frustration, well within the realm of game design. Reducing frustration and annoyance should be the focus of the practical design and implementation to complement the developing science since any expectation gap reduction will increase long-term user joy with the product and encourage a larger user acquisition. Our results are then practical suggestions that can be tackled individually.
Game developers and researchers have both performed a thorough analysis of the success factors for quest design in games, particularly role-playing games, and these constructs extend to action games. The analysis of parts of quest design allows another great classification along the discussion of skinner boxes: what construct to hook the participant and motivate the right level of engagement? There are many different types of quests and they all serve different problem spaces for the game itself and the motivations of the target audience. Players can go on main story quests, side quests, factional quests, repeatable quests, events, and daily missions, and earn up to five distinct types of rewards from completing them. The skinner game is not only the hook for engagement, that is, motivation, but also the carriers of the perceived value created in the interactions. Anything that frustrates these dynamics can frustrate the pleasure of the game itself.
7. Future Trends and Innovations
Although there exists previous work on game recommendation, a comprehensive recommendation system to suggest game players with instructions and tasks has not been well studied. The design of an in-game quest and reward recommendation system to suggest game players with in-game instructions and goals. Such a system allows inexperienced players to get into the position that familiar characters should have. The recommendations (1) refer to certain locations that seem interesting to the player, (2) explain the conditions for activating the quest, and (3) provide detailed steps or guidelines to complete the quest. Additionally, when necessary, (4) in-game rewards will be recommended to encourage the players to execute the quests.
In this section, we identify future trends and innovations. First, a general trend is the expansion of in-game quest systems in various genres, as today not only RPGs and adventure games offer quests but many other genres such as shooters or online multiplayer matches. Second, in-game reward systems are becoming more common and more diverse, combining gamification and behavioral conditioning. Future innovations in in-game reward systems may be driven by trends such as blockchain integration; merge of virtual goods and reward mechanics; third-space design and adaption of game-informed virtual currency to create a world-in-order; mining of proppian aspects of gameplay to create reward services. Third, gamified AR/MR is expected to play a significant role in the subject of household robots and VR is expected to be the next big step in entertainment technologies.
7.1. Emerging Technologies
Emerging technologies are disrupting traditional entertainment landscapes, with the popularity of video gaming increasing year-over-year, especially among the younger generation. All these novelties come with open promises of mainstreaming the gaming industry, thereby opening the familiarizing doors and offering the trending generation a ramp to knowledge expansion through self-paced learning. The effort for mainstreaming these living options lies on mappings that bridge education and entertainment into definitions of play and differentiating between what one needs to do and what can be done. The same trend for audience expansion also underscores the rise for alternatives to video tutorials and walkthroughs, hoping to engage the younger audience and allow a break from structured learning.
In-game quests and rewards are a popular narrative vehicle to lead users into exploration, provide guidance, and allow interaction with the game’s virtual environment. Quests also often act as barriers to free exploration, locking regions or features of the game environment until specific conditions like defeating enemies or completing other quests are met. Typically, such quests are introduced at early stages of gameplay, acting essentially as a built-in tutorial. However, in recent years, with the rise of open-world games, this reputation has been augmented with possibilities of emergent gameplay where leisure-oriented, stress-free exploration is embedded with a wide array of novel, niche, and beginner-friendly achievements that offer players a self-paced learning curve. This implies creating both meaningful and playful in-game interactions and dampening users’ frustration when resource-hungry tasks that are met before next-stage progress lacks operational condiments.
7.2. Personalization and Customization
FAQs, cheats, and walkthroughs spoil the fun and enjoyment of the game unless they are specifically requested by a player during time of need and pretend that it is unnecessary by actively phrasing the game. If the game environment is immersive, the environment should provide the player with real-time and realistic feedback to help the player understand the situation and actively succeed in completing the challenges and quests. As game design theorists analyze game architecture, it becomes clear to implement game content ontology using semantic Web technology to open up game features for players to personalize or individualize central components. Financial motivators can help expand the active and sustained player base for Ontario Role Playing Game content. The proposed personalization infrastructure includes the player’s virtual and concrete service providers are equipped with the tools necessary to provide the required functions for immersive and sustainable play experience. The experiment confirms the importance and value of game personalization. The ontology structure developed in this study can be used in real-time support systems of different game environments.
Personalization and customization are important factors for continued play and immersion in entertainment games. Ludic processes and features such as receiving feedback and experience, initiating challenges or even completing personalized experience can be factors for continued play. Players are more likely willing to pay money for personalized items in game. They are also very interested in creating personalized and unique game content. In relation to quests and rewards, players are more willing to participate in completing tasks and challenges in the game if they believe that they can be customized and personalized using the rewards obtained if they trade on the job.
8. Conclusion and Key Takeaways
Our study centered on a unique case of entirely in-game generated user quests that were drawn from 12 weeks of user levels played in the first-person shooter game Generation Zero. Statistically analyzing the varied game logs for these player behavior types afforded an unprecedented view of different aspects of player-rewarding quest types within a single game. By this, we contribute novel findings about user quest preferences, identifying repetition optimized timings, and the most popular quest items. Using four different player contention approaches, we scrutinized player activity and contentment with the game-driven quests. With logged user levels being created weekly, we further showed the same four player contention patterns across the entire observational time span. Finally, we discuss the observed shifts in contention together with the active player base’s most preferred client content to indicate potential quests and rewards that could be designed by the game’s publisher in the future.
In this work, we examined player engagement, particularly with regard to specific details of player-quest interactions that were driven by the game itself and related rewards within the game. While the arbitrary nature of player quests and rewards and how they relate to expected play remains an active challenge, our findings provide robust data points that can help inform game designers on how to reward players and tailor quests for maximal player appeal. As our results shed light on the characteristics and relative effectiveness of different types of player rewards, our findings have implications for the broader issue of what motivates players while playing games.